RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – With the elderly as main targets, the so-called motorcycle courier scam, which consists in sending a purported bank employee to pick up the victims’ cards for verification, has been growing in different regions of Brazil – as part of the increase in crimes involving social distancing during the pandemic.
This month, gang members specialized in the scam have been arrested in São Paulo and in the Federal District. Their sophistication is such that criminals even use software to simulate bank standby music and call center sound, in addition to retaining the victims’ phone lines.
Pensioner José Militão, 73, was at home when he received a phone call at 3:30 PM on September 2. On the other end of the line, a woman claiming to be an employee of his bank’s anti-fraud department said that, due to an alleged cloning of his card, R$1,250 (US$235) had been used in a purchase in Paudalho, in the interior of Pernambuco. As he lives in Recife, which is relatively close, he became desperate.
To solve the problem, the woman advised José to call the bank’s customer service center, at the number on the back of the card, and request that the account be blocked. When he was about to call, the pensioner received another call from the same person saying that another R$500 had been withdrawn and that, since they needed to act fast, they would transfer him to the central office to shorten the procedure.
Talking to a new alleged employee, the pensioner was asked to type the bank’s password on the keyboard and agreed to hand a courier who came to his house the bank card in an envelope that he made sure had been “sealed with plenty of glue.”
The explanation was that the card would be taken to a police station in the area where he lives to be checked. Shortly thereafter, José learned that his card had not been cloned and that he had had R$22,500 withdrawn from his account, leaving him with only R$43 of what he had saved from his rural retirement. He became another victim of the courier scam.
Data collected by FEBRABAN (Brazilian Banks Federation) indicate that in January and February this year there was an increase of 340% in the number of cases of “fake call center and fake employee scams.” The comparison is made in relation to the same months last year, when social isolation had not been implemented. Still according to FEBRABAN, about 70% of frauds mapped this year are linked to social engineering.
The Bahia Civil Police issued an alert in late July pointing out that, although the first cases of the motorcycle courier scam “date back more than 3 years, a higher incidence has been observed since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, with the increase in home office work.” Estimates by PROCON coordinator Marcelo Barbosa of the Legislative Assembly of Minas Gerais, point to an increase “of around 20% to 30%” in the number of scams involving consumer data in the state during the pandemic.
The institution issued an alert on the motorcycle courier scam in August. “The victims are mostly the elderly, who are more vulnerable to this type of scam,” Barbosa explains.
When he fell for the motorcycle courier scam, José Militão says he was with his two sons, who are trying to help him. Nevertheless, the pensioner says that the despair with the possibility of having his card cloned and the apparent professionalism of the purported attendants with whom he spoke, who even used sound effects and hold music, prevented them from realizing that they might have been victims of a scam until early in the evening. So they called the bank’s call center, but it was too late.
The pensioner registered an online complaint, opened an administrative proceeding at the bank, and is still waiting for a reply to try to recover his money.
José says that the scam was so sophisticated that when the motorcycle courier left his house, the purported attendants provided him with some kind of psychological assistance over the phone, so that the criminals could gain time.
Recovering from Covid-19 after being hospitalized for 40 days, one of the accounts shared by the pensioner during the phone call was that of his wife’s death from the disease, in March this year. He is still recovering from his grief and some of the after-effects, such as shortness of breath, to get back to work. In an attempt to help his financial situation, just like he did while his parents were in the hospital, one of José’s sons created an online fundraising campaign and posted it on social networks to promote it.
CASE IN SANTA CATARINA HAS SIMILAR SCRIPT
A transfer of R$1,250, an attempt to withdraw R$500 soon after and a payment of R$80 at a gas station. These were the amounts that pensioner Neresi de Oliveira Paulo, 65, learned had been withdrawn from her husband’s bank account in the early afternoon of August 11. A resident of Blumenau, Santa Catarina, she went into a state of shock when she heard that the card had been cloned and followed the instructions of the purported attendant to block it.
Neresi says that she didn’t suspect anything, because of the amount of personal data, hers and her husband’s, that was being reported on the other end of the line. After entering her passwords on the phone, a courier went to her house and picked up two bank cards, delivered in a sealed envelope. A little later, the pensioner says that she realized she had fallen victim to a scam: R$5,000 were transferred from one account and about R$3,400 from another.
“It was a huge shock to know that I had fallen for it,” the pensioner says. “I don’t know how I fell for this scam, because I never provided my personal data. That day it seems like I was hypnotized, I was calmly giving the data, card numbers, password and everything.” Neresi registered a police report online and opened an investigative proceeding at the bank, but has not yet heard back about any potential refunds.
According to FEBRABAN, each financial institution has its own review and return policy, which is based on “in-depth and individual” investigations. Banks consider the evidence provided by customers and information about the transactions performed, according to the federation. When no refund is forthcoming, victims may still appeal to the PROCON in the region where the crime was committed and also pursue the case in court.
Marcelo Barbosa explains that the outcomes of the motorcycle courier scams are often diverse. Nevertheless, he considers that court cases tend to refund victims, as, although they may have been deceived, the crimes are enabled by the leak of personal data. Barbosa argues that, as such, victims would be protected by Article 14 of the Consumer Defense Code, which states that failure to protect consumer data can be considered a service fault.
GANGS INVOLVED IN THE SCAM ARRESTED IN SÃO PAULO AND FEDERAL DISTRICT
Gang members who perpetrate the motorcycle courier scam have been arrested in at least two police operations conducted this month. The São Paulo Civil Police on Tuesday, September 14, arrested four women suspected of being members of a gang specialized in financial scams, such as the motorcycle courier scam.
According to the State Secretariat of Public Safety (SSP), they were found in a rented house used as a call center, in the Perus neighborhood, west zone of São Paulo. Laptops, cell phones and spreadsheets with data from potential victims were found at the site.
After investigation, agents from the 4th Precinct of the Investigations Division of Crimes against Assets (DISCCPAT), from the State Department of Criminal Investigations (DEIC), found that the gang had set up a call center with operators and recordings simulating sound effects from a number of financial institutions. The scam command center was “created with the goal of deceiving elderly account holders in order to collect bank data,” according to the SSP.
The four women were charged with fraud and criminal association. Jacques Alberto Ejzenbaum, the police officer in charge of the action, said that the women, aged between 18 and 19, confessed that on Tuesday alone they had scammed at least three victims using the motorcycle courier scam.
The cases are still under investigation, but preliminary information indicates that two of the crimes had been committed with residents of the city of Casa Branca, interior of São Paulo. “One of the victims is an elderly woman, 77 years old, who had not even filed a police report,” reports the delegate.
Ejzenbaum explains that, although they were based in a São Paulo office, there is evidence that the gang operated all over Brazil and associated with other criminals, who are responsible for card collection and banking transactions. The police are still investigating whether the motorcycle couriers, who lend their name to the scam, are part of all schemes or, in some cases, are hired exclusively to collect the cards. Investigations continue.
In the case of José Militão, the evidence suggests that the motorcycle courier was part of the gang. According to the victim’s report, for the courier to go to his home to pick up the card, the purported operator said that the motorcycle’s route would be tracked and even provided the courier’s full name and ID, which the man confirmed when he arrived to pick up the card. When he realized that he had fallen for the scam, the pensioner’s family looked up the ID number on the internet and found that it was a fake number.
According to the São Paulo 1st Police Station detective Roberto Monteiro, another ploy used by the gangs to gain credibility is to ask the victim to contact the call center number on the back of the card. However, by using a call center software called IVR, gangs manage to retain the call. Thus, when victims hang up and phone the call center from the same phone shortly thereafter, no matter how much they may think they are in control of the situation, the call is routed to the gang again. The recommendation is to use another phone or restart the device.
The Federal District Civil Police (PCDF) launched Operation Captis earlier this month, serving preventive arrest and search and seizure warrants not only in the Federal District, but also in the state of São Paulo. After having conducted operations in previous years to dismantle a gang that had been using the motorcycle courier scam, PCDF investigators continued their work and identified the group coordinating the scammers’ activities.
According to the Civil Police, the criminals were based in the city of São Paulo and, in addition to being responsible for the call center, they controlled all financial transactions. The gang’s assets, investigators say, grew from a small car wash in the city of São Paulo in 2018 to a chain of luxury car stores with revenues of nearly R$14 million in 2020.
With the deployment of the operation, 93 luxury vehicles valued at R$18 million were seized, two properties of the suspects under investigation, estimated at R$1.5 million each and R$580,000 in cash. The mega operation, which was supported by the São Paulo State Civil Police, involved approximately 130 civil police officers.
Four temporary arrest warrants and 21 search and seizure warrants were served in the cities of Brasília, São Paulo, Guarujá, and São Caetano, in addition to the arrest of one of the suspects for the crime of illegal possession of a firearm.
Adriano Valente, chief delegate of the PCDF’s Police Department of Repression to Organized Crime (DRACO) says that in addition to the Federal District and São Paulo, the gang targeted by the operation also scammed in Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. He says that although the call centers set up by these gangs are unified, the groups often associate with criminals from different areas, which adds more reach to scams.
The detective says that, according to reports of cases in the Federal District, the motorcycle courier scam has grown considerably since 2017. Consequently, the PCDF began to more regularly investigate gangs that practice the crime as of the following year. “Since 2018, when we began investigations, the number of instances of this crime has been very high. There are 300 to 400 police reports of motorcycle courier scams per year in the Federal District,” Valente says.